Exploring WWII Machine Gun Nest I must admit that this was was not real bright. While traveling through France in October of 1998 to research World War I aviation, I ran across an old machine gun nest in a farmer's field in the middle of nowhere and couldn't resist. The nearest civilization was a tiny little village called Loippy. We had driven past this old, majestic castle reminiscent of a King Arthur movie just a few minutes before while driving along a beautiful two-lane road in the French countryside. A few scattered farmhouses littered an otherwise empty and beautiful landscape. Then, rounding a slow bend, my wife and I came across this old machine gun nest. It was an amazing site. Once you studied the surrounding terrain it was obvious why it had been built there. The road we were on led traffic around the edge of a forest and into the village of Loippy, where an important intersection stood.

This "pillbox" was perfectly situated to cover the entrance to the village... any person or vehicle appearing around this corner would be instantly annihilated by the machine guns hidden in this nest.

I parked the car alongside of the deserted road and went to investigate, with my sweet wife instructing me not to go inside. I ducked between the barbed wire surrounding the pillbox and - in one of my dumber moves in life - went inside, ignoring my wife's constant admonitions to stay out.

The interior of the machine gun nest was so very cool. You could see how and why the windows were cut in certain directions. One window had been cut through the concrete and then cut a second time to gain a better field of fire. The main road into Loippy was well covered. The door was situated carefully to protect the entry and exit of the crew. The pillbox was big enough to hold several machine guns and perhaps twenty troops with room to spare. The land around it was nothing but empty farmland, offering no cover for an enemy.

With the voice of my lovely wife echoing behind me, I walked down a narrow hallway with just enough width to allow my shoulders to clear. The short passage emptied out into the largest room where the main machine gun was situated. Snooping around inside the bunker, I saw that a big, square hole had been cut right through the middle of the floor. Apparently there was a lower level and the German soldiers had installed a ladder that led down into the underground portion of the pillbox. As I leaned toward the hole to look down into it, I saw that it was full of water.

Only then did it occur to me how absurdly dangerous this place could be and that my dear wife had been right all along. Here I was, wearing heavy clothing and boots, tromping through an old, concrete World War II bunker... for all I knew the floor could give way at any time and I'd disappear into ten or twelve feet of muddy water below. There was no hope of anyone getting to me in time, let alone finding me in that nasty, dark water. And since I swim like a brick it would be curtains for me in a matter of seconds.

Having learned my lesson, I lightly tiptoed back out of the main room, down the passageway and back outside where my wife was still condemning my ill-advised sojourn. She was right, but it sure was cool to spend a few minutes inside a machine gun bunker from another era, reliving the history that the crumbling old building held.